Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger had an interesting letter in the WSJ yesterday. While his title
It Is Important to Get Nuclear Weapons Policy Right
is self-evident, there are some arguments made that are worth examining. One of the main arguments made is that
Once we have accepted numerical limits on our nuclear forces by treaty, how do we cope with changes in the global balance of forces even if it is some years down the road?
Eagleburger does raise an important point in that there is some value in remembering that strategic analysis cannot only take into account the current environment. That said, there are a couple things to keep in mind:
-The discussion about constraints isn’t a binary yes/no question. SORT already legally binds the United States to 1700-2200 strategic nuclear weapons which means there are inevitably going to be constraints. The heart of the issue is really at what point could reductions be too low so as to encourage vertical or horizontal proliferation, whether in the present of future. The “here’s an agreement modest enough there’s a chance it could be completed before December 5″ 1500-1675 number put forth in the Joint Statement (available on the solid ACW) probably won’t drastically alter these strategic hedging concerns. If it really needed to, the United States would only need to get rid of 25 weapons should they need to hug the upper limit of that due to unforeseen changes in the security environment. It seems like a difficult task to prove that the difference between 1500 and 1700 U.S. weapons will be the deciding enabler for any number of countries to greenlight nuclear weapons programs expansive enough to alter U.S. nuclear strategy equations.
-How much do you need to hedge? Typically in hedging discussions China is the country named as people talk about possibilities of them “sprinting to parity,” regardless of where comes out on the likelihood of that scenario. China, however, is not directly mentioned in piece. Instead, the main focus appears to be more on countries like Iran and North Korea knocking on the nuclear door and the possibility for new countries to develop nuclear weapons because:
It is now clear that the only constraints on nations that wish to join the nuclear club are access to money and technology.
While that statement is true in some respects, there is a crucial third factor missing: time. Even with technological assistance, it is a very significant undertaking to indigenously develop a nuclear weapons capability. We are talking many years to develop a rudimentary capability. That does not even begin to consider the challenge of producing weapons in numbers large enough that that could drastically alter U.S. strategic planning.
There’s certainly something to be said for the role of hedging but it can’t be used as a blanket catch-all to justify not taking potentially advantageous measures. Serious analytical work a la the NPR have an invaluable role to play in defining the parameters for which the United States can feel sufficiently confident in its hedging ability but I’m skeptical the answer to that equation requires absolutely no constraints on nuclear weapons.